Degree-awarding powers are granted indefinitely to publicly-funded higher education institutions in the UK, but in England and Wales they can be granted on a six-yearly, renewable basis to private organisations under the 2005 Higher Education Act - subject to approval by the Quality Assurance Agency for Higher Education.
In 2006, the College of Law became the first independent institution to be empowered to award the LLB (Bachelor of Laws) and the LLM (Master of Law), with rival BPP winning its degree-awarding spurs in September last year. The path to having degree-awarding status involved the Quality Assurance Agency reviewing the law schools’ organisation, governance, academic standards and support systems for students and staff.
While this recognition is a welcome vote of confidence in law schools, detractors have expressed concern that private institutions may be more susceptible than their publicly-funded counterparts to sacrificing quality in order to reach their profit targets (the College of Law operates on a not-for-profit basis). And from the student perspective, some undergraduates at established, publicly-funded universities have claimed that the value of their law degrees will be diluted as a result of the expansion of degree-awarding powers.
In response, the private law schools have argued that the recognition by the Privy Council is simply a natural progression by institutions that have been producing competent lawyers for many years.
The Solicitor’s Regulatory Authority (SRA) was quick to assure the consumers of legal training services of the consequences of the move. “The advent of new courses does provide more choice for students. They can be reassured the course providers will have gone through a very rigorous assessment about the quality of their courses,” an SRA spokeswoman told Legal Week.
At the College of Law, all students that complete the Graduate Diploma in Law (GDL) and the Legal Practice Course (LPC) or Bar Vocational Course (BVC) at any of the College’s campuses will be eligible to walk away with an LLB at no additional cost.
“These courses together are more than sufficient for the LLB under the national guidelines,” says Richard de Friend, the director of the College of Law’s Bloomsbury Centre. In September 2007, the College handed its first LLBs to 599 students who passed both the GDL and the BVC or LPC.
At BPP, the LLB has been designed exclusively for GDL students who have to complete two additional modules in order to obtain the degree - at an additional cost of £895 per module. “I am not in favour of a piece-of-paper-for-nothing degree,” says Peter Crisp, the dean of BPP Law School.
“With the LLB we are addressing the weakness of the GDL - which is quite narrow, with only seven core subjects - when compared to the traditional LLB. The LLB is the gold standard of legal education in this country and it should be respected and preserved as such.”
In addition to the LLB, BPP will this summer launch the LLM in Professional Legal Practice. Next year, it will launch the LLM in International Business Law and the LLM in Commercial Law.
LPC or BVC students are allowed to upgrade their qualification to the LLM in Professional Legal Practice, with additional coursework worth 60 credits at a cost of £3,500.
BPP anticipates that several hundred students will graduate with the new degrees (LLB and LLM in Professional Legal Practice) this summer; both the LLB and the LLM can be completed on a full-time or part-time basis.
Kaplan Law School, the newest private law school in London having opened in 2006, also awards LLBs (at no extra cost) to its GDL students who progress onto the LPC. Its degree-awarding powers are held through its partnership with Nottingham Law School which, as part of Nottingham Trent University, has many years experience of offering legal qualifications. Kaplan also awards an LLM in Professional Legal Studies.
The heart of the College of Law’s new powers is the £9,500 LLM in International Legal Practice, a joint venture with the International Bar Association (IBA) which launched in January 2008 with 42 students from 21 different legal jurisdictions. Two students on the course already have training contracts.
In addition, the College launched the LLM in Legal Practice (UK) in March 2008 with 38 law students - the majority of who have previously completed an LPC or BVC with the College. To complete the LLM in Legal Practice, LPC or BVC, students would have to take three more modules costing £1,395 per module.
The success of the private law schools’ degree-awarding powers obviously depends on how students and the law firms respond to these extra qualifications. Common among the private law schools empowered to award law degrees is the emphasis on the so-called Professional LLM.
It is hoped that this will be more attractive to both law firms and students than the traditionally more academic LLM, by targeting not only GDL students, but also practising lawyers who can return to law school and produce research based on their law firm experience as opposed to pure academic research.
For example, although the College of Law has introduced another LLM programme, its focus is on the LLM in International Legal Practice which has been marketed by the IBA. “ The other LLM is a service we are offering as an added value to our LPC students, but the UK market has not expressed support for it, and it has not attracted a lot of students at the moment,” says Sarah Hutchinson, director of professional development at the College of Law.
The international LLM, which is delivered online, has been put together with the contribution of leading law firms including Allen & Overy, Baker & McKenzie, DLA Piper, Debevoise & Plimpton, Freshfields Bruckhaus Deringer and Malaysian firm Tay & Partners.
Both the College of Law and BPP said they were in talks with City law firms about the possibility of reaching agreements on how the law firms can use the Professional Practice LLM to enhance their lawyers’ skills.
The law firms are said to be particularly interested in having lawyers in all jurisdictions (UK, US and international offices) enrol in the LLM.
“We have been able to demonstrate the quality of the case studies and training materials, and have ensured the programme is genuinely international. Our designers sent case studies to these firms in a variety of jurisdictions and those lawyers gave us practical advice, relevant in their own jurisdictions,” says Hutchinson.
She is “reasonably confident” that the law firms will put through a cohort of their international lawyers from other jurisdictions as a pilot in January 2009.
She believes the firms are interested in the International Practice LLM precisely because it is not an academic LLM. “For example, instead of writing an essay, students draft a contract and, as a tutor, I have taken the role you would normally expect a partner or a supervising fee earner to do. I improve their drafting skills, grammar, and give general professional advice,” she says.
While some law firms have reacted indifferently to these new qualifications, others believe there is potential for an effort to enhance their lawyers’ skills through the Professional Practice LLM.
Simon Firth, training development partner at Linklaters says: “We support the LLM being offered by the College of Law. In fact, we have had people applying to pursue those programmes and we have approved them, provided they are consistent with what we think will be added value to their skills and the firm.”
“Our understanding is that the students can complete the modules over the summer and, even if they had to delay their start date, we have the flexibility to do that,” he says, before adding: “I do not want to overstate it; we do not see particularly substantial benefits as the degrees would not affect the quality of training that the students receive.”
Herbert Smith says it has, for the moment, left the decision to pursue the degrees to individual trainees, and the firm will provide flexibility in terms of start dates so that trainees who choose to study extra modules can do so without jeopardising their training contract. However, the firm will not be giving financial support to trainees who choose to take those modules. “It does not make a massive difference from our perspective because we are already clear about the course that our future trainees are following,” says Chris Parsons, graduate recruitment partner at Herbert Smith.
Jonathan Wood, graduate recruitment partner at US firm Weil Gotshal & Manges, says although he does not see any inadequacy in the trainees coming through the door, the firm will decide applications for support to complete the LLM on a case-by-case basis.
Norton Rose tax partner Dominic Stuttaford says the firm has not had serious policy discussions internally on the issue of trainees who want to pursue the new degrees. However, the instinctive reaction, he said, is that the firm would look at it on a case-by-case basis. “If it is of benefit to them and to us, then we would look at it very carefully. We would not make an automatic yes or no policy,” says Stuttaford.
To students, the degrees from the private law schools are attractive for different reasons. For Jonathan Patel, an LLB candidate at the College of Law, having the LLB is a way of enhancing his qualifications as he fills in training contract applications.
“This will be in addition to my history degree. It appears to be a good incentive to attend The College of Law as there are no additional requirements needed to gain an LLB Ñ you just need to successfully complete the GDL and LPC, which hopefully I am on course to do,” he says.
He says the LLB will prove useful if he decides to pursue a legal career abroad as he would fulfil the requirement of a law degree to complete another conversion course, such as the New York Bar.
James Booker, a civil engineer based in Singapore, has seen value in enrolling in the LLM International Legal Practice at the College of Law. “I have a Masters degree in construction law and I provide consulting and advisory services to clients in the energy and natural resources sectors. I act as an arbitrator in disputes, mainly in the energy and mining sectors. With the LLM in International Practice, I will gain a broader legal education and I expect to be able to deal with lawyers on a peer-to-peer basis after completing the programme,” he says.
With the provision of academic LLMs, an area historically dominated by red-brick universities, the private law schools’ focus on the Professional Practice LLM would seem a logical one. The law schools will always attract non-law students looking to convert to a legal career - there is a market for these new degrees.
The interest shown by large law firms to explore the provision of bespoke LLMs in Professional Legal Practice for their international lawyers seems to hold the greatest potential for the law schools mindful of profits.
Although many law firms seem uncertain as to how the new degrees, especially the LLB, will benefit them and their trainees, there is no uncertainty as to how beneficial the degrees will be to graduates of the private law schools still searching for the elusive training contract.
It is likely, therefore, that the power to award an LLB will attract students seeking to undertake the GDL, while interest from the industry will shape the future of the Professional LLM.
